It will be a long-haul adventure all the way to one end of the earth for Nidhi Tiwari. Next year, Tiwari and her driving holiday company, Women Beyond Boundaries (WBB), will rev up for a midwinter, 80-day Trans-Arctic Expedition. The six-woman team, who will travel in four-wheel drives, will first head to Norway where they’ll practice driving in snow and icy conditions. Then, in January, they’ll set off on an arduous journey that’s slated to take them through seven countries in the Arctic Circle.

Tushar Agarwal and Sanjay Madan of Adventures Overland are also striking out by road in all directions. They’re taking one trip in August in which they’ll spend 12 nights and 13 days driving through Alaska to the northernmost tip of the Arctic Ocean. Another expedition which they will head from India is the New Delhi to London 45-day one for which they have already got 15 bookings so far. A memo-rable experience for the duo was the India Bangkok expedition that they did four times along the newly-opened highway that stretches like a black ribbon all the way from India, through Myanmar and finally on to the bright lights of Bangkok. Starting out in Imphal, they crossed the border into Myanmar. On the way, they stopped at places like Bagan with its golden-leaf coloured Shwezigon Pagoda and much more.

Indians are moving into high gear when it comes to vacations and seeking out adventure. Self-drive extreme overland road holidays, both in India and to the ends of the earth, figure high on their must-do lists.

And ready to take them around the world are a clutch of motoring enthusiasts who’ve turned entrepreneurs and started end-to-end self-drive expeditions offering off-the-beaten-track tours. Says Agarwal: “Self-drive tours are becoming all the rage in India because of the extreme adventure involved.”

These adventure-seekers often head to the world’s less well-known and less-explored regions. Take Mumbai-based motoring enthusiasts Piyush Sonsale, Medha Joseph and Sujal Patwardhan, who turned on the ignition at Embarq
Motoring Experiences less than a year ago. Their recent self-drive adventure was around Kyrgyzstan, the tiny mountainous land that’s also known as the Switzerland of Central Asia. The trio started from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, and drove in different directions, exploring the country. “The roads go through some of the most beautiful mountains and gorges in Kyrgyzstan and the Naryn River is by your side throughout,” says Sonsale, a one-time automotive journalist.

 

Joseph and Patwardhan did their first cross-continental self-drive all the way from Hyderabad to Morocco. In 57 days, they traversed through 16 countries starting at the Indo-Myanmar Bridge and heading through the grasslands in China, and the chilly Pamir mountains in Central Asia to finally by boat across Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco. Soon after this, the trio formed Embarq Motoring Experiences in Mumbai.

Similarly, Agarwal and Madan began their on-road adventures by doing an epic drive spanning 90,000km across 50 countries and six continents in 2014. The trip has been recorded in a book The Great Indian World Trip. Says Agarwal: “From hanging out with the locals in Thailand, to testing our endurance on Bolivia’s death roads, we experienced it all.” He adds, with some degree of understatement: “It was a memorable drive.”

Each of these companies picks its journeys carefully to offer varied and unknown landscapes for Indian adventure-seekers. So, at one level, Delhi-based Animesh Singh of We Nomads is planning to offer a lush, tropical trip to Bangkok and another to the forbidding people-free wastes of Iceland. Says Singh, “What makes such self-drive trips thrilling is that they are uncertain with challenges at every corner of the road. That gives a kick to the traveller.”

And don’t think that the self-drive holidaymakers have abandoned India totally. Not at all. We Nomads, which hit the road last year, has a string of self-drive trips planned to far-flung and picturesque corners of the country like Ladakh, Spiti, Rajasthan and the Northeast. It’s also heading to Bhutan, which still only gets small numbers of tourists.

Similarly, there’s Delhi-based Ashish Gupta, 44, an investment banker who changed gears to start Cougar Motorsport. This year, he’s sketched out the roadmaps for an 11-night Trans-Himalayan expedition in July (Shimla-Leh-Srinagar priced at Rs 1 lakh per person) and a five-night Desert Dash (Rs 1 lakh) which includes all stays in luxury hotels and all meals. Says Gupta, “Our audience is typically between 45 and 60 years and comprises fairly successful professionals who are looking to do more experiential drives in their own country.”

One road-tripping company that stays almost entirely within Indian borders is Mumbai-based Offbeat Adventure Drives started by Ravi Nayar in 2015 that offers self-drive luxury driving holidays along offbeat routes across India. “Road trips have become aspirational,” says Nayar, whose forte lies in bespoke journeys to non-touristy offbeat beaches or to the less well-known parts of Rajasthan and the Himalayas.

The newer road-trip companies are also stepping on the gas in the coming months. Agarwal and Madan of
Adventures Overland are mapping a packed schedule for themselves, doing one self-drive expedition every month till April 2017. Coming up next month is a seven-night and eight-day drive to Spiti with 20 participants (the trip costs Rs 65,000 per person). Then, in August, there’s a more ambitious 12-night-13-day self-drive in Alaska (Rs 5 lakh per person) and that will be followed up by a marathon 45-day New Delhi-to-London trip that will cost roughly Rs 15 lakh per person.

Embarq’s Sonsale, too, is looking at one drive every alternate month and aiming to speed up. Coming up are smaller self-drive tours in the Baltic countries which will start and end in Vilnius in Lithuania in August (Rs 2.75 lakh per person). Then, there’s a six-days and seven-nights self-drive tour in Kyrgyzstan in October (Rs 1.4 lakh per person) and a bigger, a six-week overland trip from India to Europe via Myanmar, China, Central Asia and  Russia that will flag off next year.

Tiwari is breaking boundaries in a totally different way. She’s focusing on getting more women on the road. Women have, in the past, been held back by societal pressures from attempting arduous driving trips on their own but now all that’s changing. Tiwari’s looking at doing two 15-day Himalayan expeditions in the coming months. Her first long-distance road trip last year was an ambitious journey along with two motor-enthusiast friends from New Delhi to London covering 23,800km and traversing 17 countries. She’s also off right now for an extreme, 20-day self-drive Himalayan expedition sponsored by Porsche India.

The size of an expedition depends on the number of people who’ve signed on (usually in a convoy of 10-15 cars) and on what’s manageable in the regions through which the trip is going. Tiwari’s trip through the Arctic Circle will be an expensive one and she doesn’t plan for more than three to four cars. At an entirely different level, the Adventures Overland two-week trip to Bangkok last year was made up of a convoy of eight cars. It cost Rs 3.5 lakh per person.

But there are a few lone rangers too, like motoring enthusiast Shantanu Chakraborty from Calcutta, who loves to get behind the wheel with his family. He says, “The next drive that I am planning is from Calcutta to Leh via Srinagar and return via Manali.” He’ll have to make all arrangements himself and do without on-road support though.

Says Sonsale: “When you’re on your own, breakdown assistance can be a concern, especially, when you’re travelling with family. That’s where being part of a convoy helps.”

But getting a trip on the road — particularly to an international destination — is almost tougher than the journey itself. The companies offer a huge menu of services including car rentals and charting out detailed itineraries and maps and journey guides. Then, there are a string of legal requirements like the ATA Carnet (which allows the duty-free import of the vehicle). These travel companies also give facilities like back-up vans with basic medical aid, a lead vehicle in the convoy and premium accommodation and all meals en route.

Everyone’s also scouting for new experiences and destinations. Gupta of Cougar Motorsport is looking forward to a 4x4 Week in Goa along with one Land Rover off-roading experience over weekends across the country.

Nayar’s Offbeat Adventure Drives, too, offers something for everyone: long-distance drives, bespoke drive in the Western Ghats and short weekend drives across the country. It is also committed to the environment. “When we leave the camp site, the garbage is collected so the spot is left pristine.” Unexpected events are minimised by doing thorough and extensive pre-trips.

There are some golden rules of the road that must be followed on these kind of trips. Says Agarwal: “Never get into any political and religious discussions while on a drive that could lead to conflict. Never break speed limits. And it’s good to always carry spare parts like a fuse or battery or a wiper.”

So, what are you waiting for? Fasten your seatbelts, hit the road and head into the unknown.